Leo E. Strine, Jr. (born 1964) is an American attorney and retired judge for the

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...

. He served on the

Delaware Court of Chancery The Delaware Court of Chancery is a court of equity in the American state of Delaware. It is one of Delaware's three constitutional courts, along with the Supreme Court and Superior Court. Since 2018, the court consists of seven judges. The chie ...

as vice chancellor from 1998 to 2011 and chancellor from 2011 to 2014, and as the chief justice of the

Delaware Supreme Court The Delaware Supreme Court is the sole appellate court in the United States state of Delaware. Because Delaware is a popular haven for corporations, the Court has developed a worldwide reputation as a respected source of corporate law decision ...

from 2014 to 2019. Strine has worked in private practice since 2020.

Life and career

Born in

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, Strine grew up in

Hockessin, Delaware Hockessin () is a census-designated place (CDP) in New Castle County, Delaware, United States. The population was 13,527 at the 2010 census. History Hockessin came into existence as a little village in 1688 when several families settled in the a ...

. He graduated from A.I. DuPont High School in 1982. Strine then graduated '' magna cum laude'' from the

University of Pennsylvania Law School The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School (also known as Penn Law or Penn Carey Law) is the law school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is among the most selective and oldes ...

in 1988 with his Juris Doctor, after having received his

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

'' summa cum laude'' from the

University of Delaware The University of Delaware (colloquially UD or Delaware) is a public land-grant research university located in Newark, Delaware. UD is the largest university in Delaware. It offers three associate's programs, 148 bachelor's programs, 121 ma ...

in 1985. Strine clerked for Judge

Walter K. Stapleton Walter King Stapleton (born June 2, 1934) is a Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and a former United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Delawa ...

of the

United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (in case citations, 3d Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts for the following districts: * District of Delaware * District of New Jersey * East ...

and for Chief Judge John F. Gerry of the

United States District Court for the District of New Jersey The United States District Court for the District of New Jersey (in case citations, D.N.J.) is a federal court in the Third Circuit (except for patent claims and claims against the U.S. government under the Tucker Act, which are appealed to the ...

. He was a corporate litigator at the firm of

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates is an American multinational law firm headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1948, the firm consistently ranks among the top U.S. law firms by revenue. The company is known for its wor ...

, and then Counsel to Governor Thomas R. Carper. Strine has taught at several academic institutions including

UCLA School of Law The UCLA School of Law is one of 12 professional schools at the University of California, Los Angeles. UCLA Law has been consistently ranked by '' U.S. News & World Report'' as one of the top 20 law schools in the United States since the inception ...

Vanderbilt University Law School Vanderbilt University Law School (also known as Vanderbilt Law School or VLS) is a graduate school of Vanderbilt University. Established in 1874, it is one of the oldest law schools in the southern United States. Vanderbilt Law School has consiste ...

, and Harvard Law School, and lectured at many more. He is currently the Michael L. Wachter Distinguished Fellow in Law and Policy at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He became Vice Chancellor of the

on November 9, 1998, and became Chancellor of that court on June 22, 2011. During the 2006–2007 academic year, he served as a special judicial consultant to the

American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of aca ...

's Committee on Corporate Laws. Strine was confirmed as Chief Justice of the Delaware Supreme Court on January 29, 2014. In October 2018, Strine wrote for the majority when it found that the

business judgment rule The business judgment rule is a case law-derived doctrine in corporations law that courts defer to the business judgment of corporate executives. It is rooted in the principle that the "directors of a corporation... are clothed with hepresumpti ...

protected a controlling shareholder even though it did not offer minority shareholder protections until after its initial

squeeze-out A squeeze-out or squeezeout, sometimes synonymous with '' freeze-out'', is the compulsory sale of the shares of minority shareholders of a joint-stock company for which they receive a fair cash compensation. This technique allows one or more share ...

bid. In July 2019, Strine announced his retirement from the bench, to be carried out at the end of September or October or upon the confirmation of his successor. Strine retired from active service on October 30, 2019. In April 2020, the New York-based law firm, Wachtell Lipton announced that former Chief Justice Strine would be joining its firm to advise Wachtell’s clients on mergers, litigation and other matters. He is currently Of Counsel in the firm's storied Corporate department. In July 2022, Twitter announced it had retained Wachtell Lipton to sue Elon Musk in regards to the termination of Twitter's acquisition by Musk. Strine was announced as part of the team handling the matter

Personal life

Strine lives in Hockessin, Delaware, with his wife Carrie, an occupational therapist, and their two sons, James and Benjamin.

Controversy

The

Supreme Court of Delaware The Delaware Supreme Court is the sole appellate court in the United States state of Delaware. Because Delaware is a popular haven for corporations, the Court has developed a worldwide reputation as a respected source of corporate law decisions, ...

admonished Strine in 2012 for an opinion he wrote while serving on the

. The opinion included discussion of legal issues about

limited liability companies A limited liability company (LLC for short) is the US-specific form of a private limited company. It is a business structure that can combine the pass-through taxation of a partnership or sole proprietorship with the limited liability of a ...

unrelated to the case at hand. He also made comments about the litigants' fashion, referred to the case as a "drunken

WASP A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. ...

fest," and asked them to disclose their religion. In a 2010 case, Ingres Corp. v. CA Inc., during a breach of contract case, both sides, Ingres Corp and CA Inc, both agreed that Strine erred. Vice Chancellor Strine made a comment that he, "forgot this oral statement and delved only into the voluminous record. As indicated above, this record was confusing and I came away from it with the wrong impression. …I overlooked this deposition testimony and instead focused upon the written documents in the record when drafting the Post-Trial Opinion. In short, I blew it.” Yet, he maintained that his "original factual finding to the contrary was inaccurate," and after admitting how his error impacted his previous determination, he decided the error does not materially change the outcome of the case.

Publications

Strine has published many academic articles on corporate law and is a frequent commenter on business law, generally. Notably, he has been published by the Yale Law Journal, Harvard Law Review,

University of Pennsylvania Law Review The ''University of Pennsylvania Law Review'' is a law review published by an organization of second and third year J.D. students at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. It is the oldest law journal in the United States, having been publishe ...

Cornell Law Review The ''Cornell Law Review'' is the flagship legal journal of Cornell Law School. Originally published in 1915 as the ''Cornell Law Quarterly'', the journal features scholarship in all fields of law. Notably, past issues of the ''Cornell Law Rev ...

, Northwestern Law Review,

Delaware Journal of Corporate Law ''The Delaware Journal of Corporate Law'' is Widener University Delaware Law School's corporate law review. The ''Journal'' was established in 1975 and publishes three issues per annual volume. In addition to scholarly articles, the ''Journal'' pu ...

, and the Journal of Corporation Law. Many of his scholarly writings can be found on hi
SSRN page

References

External links